A new region for fission and fission isomer studies

An IsoSpin Laboratory would offer a unique opportunity to greatly extend the knowledge of the fission process. Near barrier studies of fission have been largely limited to a relatively narrow region of actinides (Th-Cf). Over the past decade the most exciting areas of fission studies have been associated with the very heaviest elements where rapidly changing barrier and shell properties have resulted in strong variations in mass distributions and kinetic energy release. These areas are, however, extremelly difficult to access and only limited quantities of data have been obtained. With an ISL facility it will be possible to produce copious quantities of previously inaccessible isotopes (due to a lack of any stable or long lived targets) in the region between Pb and Th. Using the ISL prototypical design it is estimated that over 300 isotopes will be produced in the Pb-Th region having beam intensities > 106 particles/sec